Certain material or article handling operations require transferring articles, such as containers or trays, from a stack of such articles to further material handling equipment, such as conveyors and the like. Manually unstacking or destacking various kinds of containers, for example, and transferring them to a conveyor or the like can be an arduous task. In volume production of various articles, such as frozen foodstuffs, for example, the foodstuffs are moved from one phase of production to another in vertically stackable containers or trays and these trays must be unstacked and moved seriatim to another location for further processing of the foodstuffs contained in the trays. In order to increase the speed with which sets of vertically stacked trays may be unstacked and transferred to conveyor equipment, for example, it is desirable to alleviate the hazards and fatigue brought on by manual handling of such containers or trays. Accordingly, there has been a need to provide material handling apparatus which is particularly adapted to remove containers or trays from stacks of such trays and transfer the containers or trays to a substantially horizontal conveyor for further handling or transport. It is to these ends that the present invention has been developed.